Nothing Existed Except the Eyes of the Maharshi

Ramana Maharshi's gaze ignited a college professor's Kundalini, opened
his heart center, and stopped his thoughts.

By N. R. KRISHNAMURTI AIYER

I am now ninety-two years old and I first met the Maharshi
in the summer of 1914, when I was just a boy of sixteen. We were then on a pilgrimage to Tirupati and had halted in Tiruvannamalai, from where my grandmother hailed. We were not strangers to this town.

In the pilgrim party there were half a dozen boys, all
of whom were about my age. We all decided to go up to Virupaksha cave.
The Maharshi was then residing there and was attentive to all the activities
of us youngsters. I noticed his gaze particularly focused on me.

We were all playing with the conch shell. The sadhus used to blow this shell like a horn when they went into town to beg for alms.

One after the other, we attempted to blow the conch shell. No one prevented us from doing this, and I noticed an encouraging smile from the Maharshi. This was my first visit.

This article is transcribed from a filmed talk. See part of it here on YouTube.

Some eight years later, I came to Tiruvannamalai to visit my sister, who was married there. One evening, two companions and I went to visit Kavyakanta Ganapati Muni up on the hill where he had his ashram. What can I say about that great seer of Mantra Sastra?

I was just then out of college after finishing my masters degree in physics. I presented to Kavyakanta the latest views of Einstein, Planck and others in regard to the constitution of matter and the universe. He gave a patient hearing, and then said, "Can you put it in a brief way?" Answering in the affirmative, I went on explaining that there is a continuum in which time and space are involved, wherein particles change into waves and waves change into particles and all can dissolve into a single unitary medium. That is the prospect of the future.

Ganapati Muni was a devotee of Ramana Maharshi and a respected religious figure in his own right.

He listened patiently to all this and said, "The world picture is in that frame," and after a pause he exclaimed, "chitram, chitram!" These words mean ‘picture’ — you may call it a movie-picture. Those words sent a thrill through my body, through my whole frame. I suddenly felt disembodied. I was myself the whole space in which the pictures were placed — this body being one of the pictures. This experience lasted for a brief eternity. When I came round to myself we took leave of Kavyakanta.

The next day we had a meeting with Bhagavan. This was about the time he arrived at the present site of Sri Ramanasramam (1922). There were no buildings at all, except for a small shed covering the samadhi of the Mother. Bhagavan was seated on a bench under the shade of a tree, and with him, lying on the same bench, was the dog named Rose. Bhagavan was simply stroking the dog.

I wondered, among us Brahmins the dog was such an animal that it would defile all purity. A good part of my respect for the Maharshi left me when I saw him touching that unclean animal — for all its apparent cleanliness and neatness it was unclean from the Brahmin point of view.

I had a question for the Maharshi. At that time I was an agnostic. I thought nature could take care of itself, so where is the need for a Creator? What is the use of writing all these religious books telling ‘cock and bull’ stories, which do not change the situation.

I wanted to put to him straight questions: is there a soul? Is there a God? Is there salvation? All these three questions were condensed into one: Well sir, you are sitting here like this — I can see your present condition — but what will be your future sthiti? The word sthiti in Sanskrit means ‘state’ or ‘condition’.

Maharshi did not answer the question. "Oho," I thought, "you are taking shelter under the guise of indifferent silence for not answering an inconvenient question!" As soon as I thought this the Maharshi replied and I felt as if a bomb had exploded under my seat.

N.R. Krishnamurti Aiyer was born in 1898. From
1922 until 1955 he taught physics at the American College in Madurai. At the
time of his retirement he was professor and chairman of the physics department.

Text copyright 1991 Arunachala Ashrama. This article
originally appeared in The Maharshi as a two-part series entitled
"Interviews: N.R. Krishnamoorthy Aiyer" in the issues of May/June 1991 and
July/August 1991. Photos copyright Sri Ramanasramam and others. Used by permission.

This page was published on October 29, 2001 and
last revised on February 15, 2014.

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